Some nice tidbits from the designer of our beloved Bold ( and the Z10, Passport) . The steel band is part of the antenna as well. They also confirm the back, though looking like carbon fibre, is glass weave.
By the sounds of it, I think he really really enjoyed doing the Bold.

Posted via CB10

Late to the discussion but I think this is an interesting point about the frame acting as part of the antenna. Normally a continuous loop of metal would interfere with radio signal reception. So if the Bold frame is a part of the antenna, it would be interesting to know how it works.
The Bold 9900 antenna strip is glued to the plastic mid frame on top of the phone above the camera window and not connected to the metal frame. Pics are in this thread from years back.https://forums.crackberry.com/blackb...s-clip-640961/
This part of the mid frame raises out at the back which thus places the RF antenna (as well as the wifi and GPS antenna) outside of the frame loop, away from interference.
To avoid interference, the bottom part of the frame on the Q10, Classic, Passport Silver is made of plastic, while on the Original Passport the loop is discontinuous at the micro USB port. I haven't opened up a Z10 to see how the frame is built but guessing that something must be in place to keep it from forming a continuous loop.

Back after another field trip and sent the seller a message. He would check the postage to Singapore, so one is going my way.
BTW, if it genuine leather, it would take a while to loosen up a bit. And pushing from bottom may help.

Posted via CB10

Well, they are Nice Things, of themselves. If you do get one, there's a grey paper Aston Martin insert in the case. Took some cussing before I found it, wondered why the phone wouldn't go in. Duh.

We're doing some server trashing replacement here. Pulling out the ten-year old Dells and replacing them for 'modern' stuff. The old Dell Precision T3500 workstations have the sort of mechanical 'battleship' engineering in them that makes you wonder how they ever produced them at the price.

Late to the discussion but I think this is an interesting point about the frame acting as part of the antenna. Normally a continuous loop of metal would interfere with radio signal reception. So if the Bold frame is a part of the antenna, it would be interesting to know how it works.
The Bold 9900 antenna strip is glued to the plastic mid frame on top of the phone above the camera window and not connected to the metal frame. Pics are in this thread from years back.https://forums.crackberry.com/blackb...s-clip-640961/
This part of the mid frame raises out at the back which thus places the RF antenna (as well as the wifi and GPS antenna) outside of the frame loop, away from interference.
To avoid interference, the bottom part of the frame on the Q10, Classic, Passport Silver is made of plastic, while on the Original Passport the loop is discontinuous at the micro USB port. I haven't opened up a Z10 to see how the frame is built but guessing that something must be in place to keep it from forming a continuous loop.

Posted via CB10

Amazing, I didn't realise the Q10 comes in 2 pieces, but I had a look at mine to check and sure enough it does! That's some really slick manufacturing to get matching colours and such a nearly invisible seam.

Dunno about the Z10 is a mystery, I swear the external frame is continous and metal. Maybe it's not the antenna?

Though I'm even more impressed by the Bold. I like those pics, only 6 screws on the whole thing (!!!!!), steel band all around plus those charging contacts and they whole thing still serviceable.

Just googled for pics of the Z10 frame and it's all plastic. And I had always believed it was metal.

It seems that 6 screws is the standard for the Bold line, or for the legacy Blackberries. The 9000, 97 series were all built with 6 screws. The 81, 83 and 88 series may have 2 more because of the pair of side bezels - Not so sure here because I did not recall that many screws from the couples of 83 and 81 I had set my screw drivers on. The later Curve series, starting from the 85 lines have 6 screws. The later Pearl version is also 6 screws. A pair on the bottom keeping the lower part of the keyboard and main board together on the mid frame. A pair in the middle keeping the upper part of the keyboard on the main board and to the mid frame. A pair on top for the display. The rest are locks and interlocking parts.
In oppose, the Classic has enough screws for 2 Bolds with some spares. The Passport is no different. If you drop one or two screws and could not find them in the carpet, no problem at all because the remaining screws are enough with some repositioning.
With that number of screws, most of the legacy Blackberries do not need glue except for the chin part as in the 99 series. The 97 series have the displays glue onto the main board. The screen is kept in place by two screws at the top and interlocks with the keyboard at the bottom. Never had to worry about screen lifting or popping off.
In oppose, both the Classic and the Passport have twice as many screws, yet their screen were lifting off as they were only glued to the frame beneath. They should've been screwed. And now the KEYone, with screen popping off after being dropped inside a car, or when being removed from the shell case.

Did I misread something from above? Because I always thought the antenna was under the plastic piece on the BOTTOM of the 9900's metal band and it is rivited on?

I have a feeling that because of the KB pop-gate hysteria Blackberry will start applying some glue to keep it from seperating on the K1. I watched as the repair guys struggled to remove the glued down battery on my iphone 5C and in the end it was so mangled you could barely tell that it was once a long rectangular battery. Quite frankly I was suprised it didn't explode!!! But then I remembered it is not a Samsung -_-

I am still getting people comment my Youtube vids on the 9900 about how to use the device without BIS, etc. and I am answering as best I can. I also referred them to this forum where all the answers are so we will see how that cookie crumbles.

There still seems to be quite a bit of interest for the greatest device Blackberry has ever created. I don't ask where they are from, but still enthusiastic nonetheless....

Did I misread something from above? Because I always thought the antenna was under the plastic piece on the BOTTOM of the 9900's metal band and it is rivited on?

I have a feeling that because of the KB pop-gate hysteria Blackberry will start applying some glue to keep it from seperating on the K1. I watched as the repair guys struggled to remove the glued down battery on my iphone 5C and in the end it was so mangled you could barely tell that it was once a long rectangular battery. Quite frankly I was suprised it didn't explode!!! But then I remembered it is not a Samsung -_-

-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

I just replaced the keyboard in my Passport SE (nothing wrong with it except the QWERTZ layout) and removing the battery was by far the hardest part. I used a number of plastic pry tools as wedges, and then applied heat with the hair dryer -- hotter than I thought I should in the end. I was too scared to try the heat gun, so I did exercise a little caution. In the end, the heat was the trick to getting it out without mangling it or changing the shape. A couple of years ago, I removed the battery in my old Nexus 4 to replace it, and it was twisted into quite a curve when I was done. It should have caught fire.

Otherwise, the Passport was quite nice to work on. It's not much different in construction from the Q10, at least from the perspective of disassembly. But it's no 'six screws and your done' legacy device.

Well, hmmm... I was getting a little worried because my Bold always seemed to run hot and blaze through batteries pretty fast lately. today at the gym, it ran down the last 1/2 of the battery in no time flat and flat-out died.

When I got it back home, I put it on the charger and fired it back up. For some reason, Wise Pilot has been running in the background! The problem seemed to arrive at the same time summer did, so I kinda thought it was just heating up in my car (I do keep it out of direct sunlight, but it gets HOT around here sometimes..!). I have no idea why Wise Pilot decided to fire itself up, but I'm gonna keep an eye on it for awhile.

Well, hmmm... I was getting a little worried because my Bold always seemed to run hot and blaze through batteries pretty fast lately. today at the gym, it ran down the last 1/2 of the battery in no time flat and flat-out died.

When I got it back home, I put it on the charger and fired it back up. For some reason, Wise Pilot has been running in the background! The problem seemed to arrive at the same time summer did, so I kinda thought it was just heating up in my car (I do keep it out of direct sunlight, but it gets HOT around here sometimes..!). I have no idea why Wise Pilot decided to fire itself up, but I'm gonna keep an eye on it for awhile.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

David, Wisepilot after every restart of your Berry will run in background but without I think baterry draining. He is not fully "started"

Did I misread something from above? Because I always thought the antenna was under the plastic piece on the BOTTOM of the 9900's metal band and it is rivited on?

I have a feeling that because of the KB pop-gate hysteria Blackberry will start applying some glue to keep it from seperating on the K1. I watched as the repair guys struggled to remove the glued down battery on my iphone 5C and in the end it was so mangled you could barely tell that it was once a long rectangular battery. Quite frankly I was suprised it didn't explode!!! But then I remembered it is not a Samsung -_-

-sent from a beautiful Bold 9900

That plastic piece is there to serve as insulation between two charging pins.

I just replaced the keyboard in my Passport SE (nothing wrong with it except the QWERTZ layout) and removing the battery was by far the hardest part. I used a number of plastic pry tools as wedges, and then applied heat with the hair dryer -- hotter than I thought I should in the end. I was too scared to try the heat gun, so I did exercise a little caution. In the end, the heat was the trick to getting it out without mangling it or changing the shape. A couple of years ago, I removed the battery in my old Nexus 4 to replace it, and it was twisted into quite a curve when I was done. It should have caught fire.

Otherwise, the Passport was quite nice to work on. It's not much different in construction from the Q10, at least from the perspective of disassembly. But it's no 'six screws and your done' legacy device.

Do you have to remove the battery to get to the keyboard? That would be another example why removable battery is more convenient

BTW, if BlackBerry had glued the screens as well as they do with battery, there wouldn't have been any screen lifting or popping problem. Instead, Passport, Classic, and presumably the K1 have only a thin strip around the edge of the screen to apply glue on. I guess they bought the 2 mm double side adhesive 3M tape off eBay for these screen.

Haven't been in this thread for awhile (not since the KEYone came into my possession) so decided to pop my head in. I'm impressed at how active things are in here.

I've given up on my 9900 because I can't remove BES from it (I last used it for work in 2012 when I left that company). I've tried everything to get it off but it turns out that it can only be done by the BES administrator from my old company. And since that ain't happening, my 9900 is simply another part of my retired collection that I will admire from time-to-time.

That said, I bought a 9810 last week from eBay and am waiting for it to arrive from China (that slow boat needs to move faster!). It's been a looooonng time since I've played in the BB OS7 world so I'm hoping this thread can help since the 9810 forums are pretty dead these days. Are there a lot of similarities between the 9900 and 9810 OS builds?

BTW, this super thread is way too huge for me to search through so... Ralph, would you mind re-posting the link to your YouTube 9900 video? I read somewhere buried in this 5,800+ messages thread that you created one and I'd be interested in watching it. Thanks!

BTW, this super thread is way too huge for me to search through so... Ralph, would you mind re-posting the link to your YouTube 9900 video? I read somewhere buried in this 5,800+ messages thread that you created one and I'd be interested in watching it. Thanks!

Hey dude good to hear from ya again!

I have a few vids.....

I am even getting comments on my 9780 vids . I'll try to find them all and post below......

Any of you Bold Ones got any ideas about why my 9900 is suddenly blazing through batteries..?

This morning, I turned it on to go for a bike ride and found that overnight, sitting on a shelf turned off, 3/4 of a charge (2-year-old, $40 JM1 from Batteries+) had vanished into the ether, leaving only the red battery outline -- and this happened with the phone OFF (not just the radio off, the device off).